I finally did it. Would you have done the same?
By mysticmaggie
@mysticmaggie (2498)
United States
March 12, 2010 9:59am CST
I finally asked someone who posted here if they ever read or proofed what they wrote because the spelling and sentence structure (or lack thereof) was so terrible I barely knew what they wanted to say.
Was that too rude and mean? More than half the posts I see here each day are a challenge to make any sense of past the first two words. It seems to be a waste of time and effort to post something people cannot read.
Have you ever told someone they need to proof their work before posting? Do you bother reading the ones that start out difficult and run straight into the impossible to understand?
1 person likes this
5 responses
@bunnybon7 (50973)
• Holiday, Florida
20 Mar 10
actually, no! i never do that. if i cant read or understand it i just dont respond. there are people here that are just learning english, etc. i can make out a lot of ones that arent done just right. we are here to socialise i thought. many of my friends are just like myself and cant spell really well, etc. i feel like im talking/typing to friends here. 
sorry, but it just dont bother me. ooopppss! hope you can read all this mess i type
@livewyre (2450)
•
18 Mar 10
I will mainly just ignore posts that are too simplistic (what's your favorite color?) or have too much bad grammar/spelling - after all if they can't say what they want to say, how likely is it that they can understand your answer?
If the subject matter REALLY interests me, but the grammar is bad, I might try and give a simple answer to encourage the questioner. I think you have to have respect for people that are attempting to post in a language which is not their own, but sometimes you can legitimately give constructive criticism such as correcting a spelling or grammatical error. However, I would probably not bother to criticise without offering something constructive too.
1 person likes this
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
21 Mar 10
mysticmaggie comeoff your high horse, we have a lot of people from all over the wo
rld who do not have English as their first language. mylot admins says plainly in the guidelines to not do what you did. they are not to be scolded for their errors as they are trying their best to learn a very difficult language, English. What you did is unkind and unwarranted and yes it was rude and unkind.You do not know what or where that person lives and it just might be they are right now doing the best they can. so come off your high horse, and go read the guidelines. the admins say people from all countries are welcome here. Yes I do bother reading them and if I can help in a kind way,not scolding them, I will but I will not condemn them for trying at all. you are out of line.
rld who do not have English as their first language. mylot admins says plainly in the guidelines to not do what you did. they are not to be scolded for their errors as they are trying their best to learn a very difficult language, English. What you did is unkind and unwarranted and yes it was rude and unkind.You do not know what or where that person lives and it just might be they are right now doing the best they can. so come off your high horse, and go read the guidelines. the admins say people from all countries are welcome here. Yes I do bother reading them and if I can help in a kind way,not scolding them, I will but I will not condemn them for trying at all. you are out of line.@mysticmaggie (2498)
• United States
21 Mar 10
I realize there are people from all over the world writing here and that many do not know English. Those are not the people I am talking about. My mother wrote and published three books while having nothing more than a sixth grade education from back in the 1930's. She made it a point to get a good dictionary and USE it. She did not begin her writing career until she was in her fifties.
She had beautiful, flowing handwriting, which she also worked very hard to learn. If she, without the opportunities we have, could accomplish so much, surely others in this country can put forth the effort to learn decent spelling and English.
It is not being on a high horse to expect people born in this country, with the educational opportunities afforded them, to learn at least fair writing skills. And I am not talking about college. They should have those skills well along the way before reaching seventh grade.
I do not expect people from all over the globe to be proficient in English any more than I would be proficient in every other language.
@dingdangdoodle (144)
• Latvia
12 Mar 10
I haven`t run much in this kind of situation. Usually it isn`t that bad and you can make the sense out of it.
1 person likes this
@dr9rim (247)
• Australia
18 Mar 10
hi mysticmaggie.
to me posting things on the internet is not a formal thing. so, grammar and spelling and stuff like that is not a big concern to me.
but it is important to post something that can be understood. i see a lot of unanswered posts here that the questions are very badly constructed that to answer that, people will need to ask more questions and that is not fun.
so i guess we do tend to ignore posts that does not make sense to us
1 person likes this
